areeba, Entrust Enable Google Pay in Lebanon First

Entrust, a global leader in identity-centric security solutions, today announced the expansion of its strategic partnership with areeba, a global leader in payment infrastructure. Now, areeba’s bank and fintech customers can enable Google Pay for both their Visa and Mastercard cardholders processed through its platform. This means cardholders can simply tap their Android phones or Wear OS devices to pay at any store equipped with contactless technology, noting that they can also pay online and through apps.

This milestone marks a significant leap in digital payment innovation in Lebanon. With agile and proven digital card solutions from Entrust, areeba becomes the first to enable Google Pay for card issuers in Lebanon, meeting the growing demand from Lebanese consumers for easy-to-use options in-store, online, and in-app, both locally and globally.

“Bringing Google Pay to market swiftly was essential for us to stay ahead and offer this payment option to customers in record time. With this payment option, there’s no need to share cards, touch terminals, or exchange cash, while advanced security features quietly protect users’ data throughout the process,” said Maher Mikati, CEO of areeba. “Entrust’s ability, responsiveness, and shared vision for innovation were instrumental in helping us achieve this major step, which aligns with areeba’s vision to broaden access to digital financial services and support Lebanon’s evolution into a cashless economy.”

“We’re proud to strengthen our long-standing partnership with areeba, which began with instant and central physical and digital card issuance and has now expanded to include Google Pay enablement for both Visa VTS and Mastercard MDES,” said Nicolas Bruley, Vice President Digital Cards at Entrust. “Thanks to this strategic collaboration and the Entrust Digital Card Solution, areeba was able to deliver a true digital-first strategy—bringing a fully integrated, seamless, secure, and customer-centric experience to market faster than any other provider in Lebanon.”

Using the Entrust mobile SDK, cardholders now can seamlessly and securely add their cards to Google Pay and instantly use it to pay wherever contactless Google Pay payments are accepted. By enabling Google Pay and leveraging tokenization, card issuers can enable their cardholders with a seamless and secure digital payment experience.